Benjamin Zephaniah's dub poetry and its appeal to children: an ecocritical reading

Dub poetry is a recent artistic form of performance poetry and a sub-genre of spoken-word poetry that is associated with Black poets in Jamaica, Britain, and Canada. It involves direct interaction with the audience and is accompanied by rhythmic accentuation and gestures. As is emphasised in this study, this type of live performance differs from conventional poetry and is effective in attracting children's attention. The study aims to explore the distinctive characteristics that make dub poetry intriguing for children, in both its oral and printed forms, through an ecocritical reading of the early children's poetry of the Black British poet Benjamin Zephaniah, including Talking Turkeys, Funky Chickens, and Wicked World. The significance of the study lies in focusing on aspects that have not been combined in a single study: dub poetry, children's literature, and ecocriticism, which will hopefully contribute to modern and children's literature and will be an inspiring resource for researchers as well as educators bringing Zephaniah's poetry into classrooms. The study establishes how dub poetry appeals to children and has gained widespread recognition through the poet's performative qualities, humorous style, and serious undertones. It also makes a case for the educative value of Zephaniah's poetry in terms of its alignment with contemporary cosmopolitan themes, particularly animal rights, environmentalism, and racial equality. His works also merit scholarly investigation, as they have immensely popularised this type of poetry based on his unique style of fusing a new modern musical style, breaking new ground for dub poetry's formula of word and sound. The study demonstrates that Zephaniah's performative qualities, which grab children's attention in the oral form, are also found on the printed page.

The paper surveys the emergence, definitions, and debates surrounding dub poetry as a hybrid form rooted in African-Jamaican oral traditions and later developed in Britain and Canada by poets such as Louise Bennett, Mutabaruka, Oku Onuora, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Michael Smith. Coined by Oku Onuora (1979) as poetry with a built-in reggae rhythm, dub poetry privileges verbal rhythm, performance, and socio-political critique. While originally intertwined with reggae, over time poets broadened musical influences (jazz, deejay, hip hop) and often perform without backing music, relying on chanted speech, pronounced rhythmic accentuation, repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and dramatic gesturing. The genre maintains rhythmic power on the page through strategic typography and orthography. It is characterized by orality, spontaneity, Creole/vernacular usage, free verse, and an anti-academic stance grounded in street language, enhancing accessibility for children familiar with rap/hip hop/reggae and digital-era linguistic shifts. Performances are live, interactive, and variable, engaging audiences communally like theatre. Historically, dub poetry’s revolutionary ethos is linked to the Civil Rights, Black Arts, and Black Power movements, Rastafarianism, and 1970s British politics concerning racial discrimination, with reggae’s globalization (e.g., Bob Marley) pivotal to its rise. Scholarly debates focus on classification and definition, but converge on rhythm, performance, and socio-political content. Children’s poetry scholarship (e.g., Coats 2013) aligns with dub poetry’s communal, embodied, rhythmic qualities; West Indian/Caribbean British poets (James Berry, John Agard, Grace Nichols, Valerie Bloom) creatively employ Creoles in children’s verse. The paper also situates Benjamin Zephaniah within this landscape, noting his originality in addressing ecological topics (veganism, environmentalism) alongside themes of race and social justice, and his extension of performative elements onto the printed page via inventive layouts, typography, and visual-poetic play.

The study adopts an ecocritical framework to analyse a selection of Benjamin Zephaniah’s early children’s poems (notably from Talking Turkeys, Funky Chickens, and Wicked World). Drawing on foundational ecocritical definitions (Glotfelty & Fromm 1996; Barry 2017; Bellarsi 2009; Coupe 2000), the paper examines how the poems foreground relationships between humans and non-humans, critique anthropocentrism, and advance biocentric and ecocentric perspectives. Thematic analysis is combined with formal scrutiny of performative and rhetorical features (rhythm, rhyme, repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, Creole/vernacular transcription, typography, layout, and visual design) to show how oral performance qualities are translated to the printed page. The analysis is qualitative, text-based, and interpretive, situating the poems within dub poetry’s performance tradition and socio-political context while assessing their appeal to children.

• Zephaniah’s children’s dub poetry exemplifies ecocritical concerns: it consistently challenges anthropocentrism, advocates biocentrism, and explores ethical relations between humans, animals, and the environment. • His work appeals strongly to children through embodied performance (voice, gesture, rhythm) and through page-based strategies (bold/italics, varied fonts, playful layouts, concrete/shape poems, puzzles) that evoke performativity even in print. • The accessible, humorous, and rhythmic use of Caribbean Creole/vernacular, free verse, and everyday language fosters comprehension and engagement among children familiar with rap/hip hop/reggae and contemporary digital lingo. • Signature poems (e.g., Talking Turkeys!!) combine humour with serious themes—animal rights, anti-exploitation, and subtle racial/ethnic commentary—enhancing both enjoyment and ethical reflection; the poem’s lasting popularity and frequent classroom/online performances underscore its broad appeal. • Across collections, environmental themes are prominent: calls to protect forests, seas, and air (e.g., Natural Anthem, Health Care, All You Sea, We People Too, The Tourists Are Coming) align with eco-education in schools and UNESCO-inspired curricula, increasing relevance for young readers. • Zephaniah extends ecocritical scope to human social justice (race, immigration, integration), promoting unity and anti-racism (e.g., Civil Lies, Walking Black Home, Greet Tings, U.N. (United Neighbours), I De Rap Guy, Good Hope). • The fusion of humour and seriousness, along with charismatic live performance, facilitates reception of complex socio-political messages, supporting the view of poetry as an instrument of activism and education. • The study highlights that Zephaniah’s performative elements are effectively transposed to the page, enabling readers to ‘hear’ the performance internally and maintain engagement even outside live contexts.

The findings address the research aim by demonstrating how dub poetry’s intrinsic performativity, rhythmic language, and communal address, when combined with Zephaniah’s ecocritical and humanitarian themes, uniquely attract and engage child audiences. Zephaniah’s biocentric stance and critiques of exploitation (of animals, the environment, and marginalized humans) render contemporary global issues accessible to children through humour, relatable language, and embodied performance. The transposition of performance cues to print (typography, layout, Creole orthography) bridges oral and written modes, sustaining attention and aiding interpretation when poems are read aloud or silently. Educationally, these features align with curricular emphases on environmental stewardship, empathy, diversity, and anti-racism, suggesting that Zephaniah’s poetry functions as both art and pedagogy. His work revitalizes children’s poetry by merging entertainment with ethical inquiry, enabling classrooms to address complex topics via a form that children find immediately engaging.

This study aimed to analyse the children's dub poetry of the contemporary Black British poet Benjamin Zephaniah to highlight the characteristics that make his poetry more appealing to children. This was done through an ecocritical reading of his early children's poems, highlighting his biocentric attitude and revolutionary stance against anthropocentrism.

Through his performative rhythmical poetry, Zephaniah becomes the voice of the voiceless, that is, the animals, the environment, and Black minorities. He uses poetry as an instrument for social and political change. Zephaniah propagates the same concepts of ecocriticism in his exploration of the relationship between humans and non-humans. As an animal lover and a patron of the Vegan Society, Zephaniah's poems about animals and the environment explore mankind's inhumanity toward nature. He is an ardent supporter of animal rights, and his poems call for animal rights and fight exploitation and anthropocentrism using a humorous tone. As an eco-writer, his ecopoetry alerts humans to the numerous crises that threaten the planet. To highlight his anti-racism stance, his poems are invariably imbued with issues related to apartheid, bullies, and slavery. As a humanitarian, he calls for social integration as an essential aspect of building a healthy, live-able society that respects and accepts all humans regardless of race or colour. His poems can be regarded as ecocritical texts that are preoccupied with contemporary issues of animal rights, environmental crises, and Black minorities. Briefly, he opposes any monocentric attitudes such as anthropocentrism and ecocentrism and believes in biocentrism. In fact, a study on contemporary children's poetry identified Zephaniah as among the few who discuss ecocentric themes such as vegetarianism, thus differentiating him from his peers. Furthermore, the spontaneity, intimacy, and live performance of dub poetry helped him to establish an important position for himself in the British literary scene. This has ensured that his work has a universal reach and appeal. The potential appeal of dub poetry is emphasised by Zephaniah, as he proudly stated: "In this age of technology and mass communication, I'm still very impressed by the fact that people still wanna come out and listen to poetry" (Doumerc 2004, p. 146).

This study elaborates on the features of Zephaniah's dub poetry and the strong appeal that it has for children, in both its oral and printed forms, due to its performative qualities and rhetorical strategies as well as the poet's unique selection of themes that are relevant to children and evoke laughter. As one student stated, "I think Benjamin Zephaniah's poetry is fantastic. It made us all laugh. He's also inspired me to write my own poetry about Wales" (Daily Post 2005, p. 8).

This study contributes to the existing literature by analysing Zephaniah's dub poetry for children and the qualities that appeal to children and engage their attention through the lens of ecocriticism. Given Zephaniah's popularity with children and, for many years, in schools, the study hopes to contribute to children's literature through its consideration of a wide range of Zephaniah's poems, which hopefully will make it quite an interesting and useful resource for many teachers, researchers, and readers alike. The insightful explanation of dub poetry and its nature is a genre of literature that deserves more scholarly attention. Future research can be conducted based on the following questions: How can research on children's response to Zephaniah's works and the works of other dub poets such as Levi Tafari and Adisa be conducted? What is the positive effect of dub poetry on children? Why is dub poetry mostly a male-dominated domain? How do other British Caribbean poets engage creatively with children?

The study is a qualitative, text-based ecocritical and formal analysis of a selection of Zephaniah’s early children’s poems; it does not include empirical research on children’s responses or measured educational outcomes. Its scope is limited to Zephaniah (with reference to related poets), leaving broader comparative and gender-focused analyses for future work, as suggested by the proposed research questions.